BLOG: Strange Times, These

​Greetings from snowy Kirkwood, California, where my family has holed up to get some social distance.  ​​It feels like the end of a Star Wars battle sequence where all the rebels scatter to different planets, and I ended up on the snowy one.  I’m literally skiing to get groceries. ​Strange times, these.

Human gatherings are illegal, yet people need the arts more than ever.  ​The digital empires now take an even larger share of our human interactions.  The entire basis of music-making – playing together – is impossible.

Amidst a pandemic that is killing thousands, wringing hands about the arts might seem quaint, even small-minded.  But emotional health is a key element in our social and expressive species. At some point, people will need to find ways to come together, even if six feet apart (better that than six feet under).

Like many artists, I’ve watched years-long projects shelved.  Phliharmonia Fantastique‘s premiere with the Chicago and San Francisco Symphonies is on hold, and many other exciting concerts have been cancelled –  including the rest of this season’s KC Jukebox series and Children of Adam with the Colorado Symphony.  Many of these events will be rescheduled in the post-apocalypse, but it’s been distressing to see so much work evaporate in the course of a few sad weeks.

At some point, we humans will need to venture out of our caves and gather again.  Some courageous organizations will need to put a pause on further cancellations and be the first to (safely) reopen.  In the meantime, I’m enjoying the many streamed performances from musicians’ homes, and hope to contribute to that effort once I return to my studio.  My deepest thanks to all the artists who are sharing their passions online – stay safe and take long walks!

Jesus and Techno

One evening this month at the Kennedy Center encapsulates the stylistic sea-voyage that I undertake on a regular basis. On Jan 30, I’ll take a bow after the National Symphony Orchestra’s performance of my symphonic work Resurrexit – and walk offstage straight to another building to introduce DJ Juan Atkins, godfather of techno, on my KC Jukebox series.

This kind of omnivorous music making is what invigorates me, and it’s also what makes the Kennedy Center such a special place.
My relationship with the National Symphony goes back well over a decade to the time of Leonard Slatkin, who conducted to premiere of my Liquid Interface in 2007. That was my first large symphony that included electronic sounds, and the success of that work inspired me to continue pushing the narrative direction of my music. While many of the players who premiered the work are still in the orchestra, a great many are new – and it’s been interesting to watch this orchestra evolve over the years.
Orchestras are one of the best examples of the “Ship of Theseus,” a philosophical riddle: if you changed all the planks of wood on a ship as it sailed from one destination, would it be the same ship when it arrived at another? No matter how many players change in an orchestra, the musical identity of these giant cruise ships often remains identifiable from one decade to the next. The NSO has a particularly stunning brass section, which will be on full display with my Resurrexit.

The piece was premiered last year by Maestro Manfred Honeck, who joins the NSO this month. When he challenged me to write a “spiritual opener,” I’ll admit some hesitancy. Symphonic openers tend to be fast-paced and flashy, adjectives not normally associated with spiritualistic enterprises. Honeck is a devout Catholic who’s created a unique “spirituality in music” focus for some of his concerts, with imaginative stagings of masterworks like the Mozart Requiem. I didn’t know I could contribute.
But I soon found myself wondering if the Resurrection could be set in a vivid and magical way – a kind of antidote to the heavier settings of it by Mahler et al. The work ended up becoming my most propulsive piece, moving from biblical mystery to fire-like magic. Special percussion instruments from the church make cameos, such as the Byzantine Semantron to altar bells. I’ll always be thankful to Manfred for inspiring me to write this work.
So, from a symphonic Resurrection to … Detroit techno? It’s all possible thanks to the Kennedy Center, which houses such an unbelievably rich array of performing arts. Serving as composer-in-residence for five years has shown me just how essential a national arts center is. This place is like the Jupiter of the performing arts, with over a dozen separate venues presenting everything from hip-hop to opera.

My KC Jukebox series has migrated through many of them, transforming spaces large and small into immersive, club-like hangs. I invited Juan Atkins because of his historic role in the creation of techno, which was born in Detroit in the 1980’s. Amidst the continuing adulation of DJs from northern Europe, Juan Atkins remains under-appreciated to this day. Many fans of electronic dance music don’t realize the genre emerged from the ashes of Motown, created by African-Americans who were hacking synths and drum machines in a kind of Futuristic utopia.
Key Atkins releases of that era will be featured on this KC Jukebox. Supporting seminal releases such as “Clear” (from Atkins aka Cybotron) will be a string ensemble performing brand-new arrangements. It’s a fun challenge to create arrangements for music this stripped-down, yet in some ways the electro-acoustic mix can be more successful than with more produced tracks. Having a bit more sonic space allows the strings to spread out more in the mix. Juan Atkins rarely performs in the US, so having him at the Center is a very special event.
What’s next after this lightning-fast stylistic sea-voyage? A few weeks later I head to Sun Valley, Idaho for a Mercury Soul in the snow!

2020 Vision

2020 always used to sound so distant and futuristic, but now it’s upon us – and artificial intelligence is still an oxymoron (hey Siri); phones sound worse than in the 1980s; and aliens are still avoiding Earth for a party on some other planet. But on the bright side, computers are now so powerful that my entire music studio can travel in my carry-on; an explosion of new platforms has expanded the possibilities of storytelling; and delivery has become so instantaneous, an ounce of saffron can be droned to your kitchen for an impromptu paella. The best developments, from my perspective, integrate animal warmth and new tech – or, in short, both analog and digital. That intersection continues to fascinate me artistically, and you can hear it this spring in premieres at both SF Symphony and SF Opera, as well as as events I’m curating at the Kennedy Center and Mercury Soul:

KC Jukebox

Serving as composer-in-residence of the Kennedy Center for the past five years has brought so many great moments, meeting everyone from President Obama to Herbie Hancock. The most inspiring part has been KC Jukebox, my new music in new formats series. We’ve transformed spaces all over the Center with shows featuring leading lights in contemporary music, and starting this month we get to inhabit a new one: the REACH extension, three new buildings that opened just this year.

In January we present DJ Juan Atkins, the ‘godfather of techno,’ in a show that complements his raw Detroit energy with a string ensemble. Atkins is of royal blood in the world of electronic music, and his touring often takes him beyond our shores – so don’t miss this rare opportunity! In March we’re visited by fiddler virtuoso Jeremy Kittel, who combines bluegrass and classical string playing in the most virtuosic ways (think Chris Thile, Edgar Meyer, David Grisman). Then we have two separate visits from the leaders of the Thievery Corporation, the hit psychedelic band that performed on Jukebox’s second season. Eric Hilton’s Ekodohm project is a deep dive into the world of analog synthesizers, while Rob Garza’s Dissolve is a stunning collision of house beats and a string ensemble. Alongside these cross-genre artists we’ll be presenting classical offerings from old to new, allowing each to shine a light on the other.

Mercury Soul
My classical/club show continues offerings thumping good times around San Francisco, with shows integrating classical musicians into a variety of new venues for us. On January 25, we present DJ Dave Aju in a program featuring the music of JS Bach, John Adams, and Johann Johansson. The amazing Friction Quartet performs, along with popup solos from cellist Johan Kim and violinist Kevin Rogers, and we’ll be improvising some live electronic elements into the Johansson quartets.

Later this season, The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs comes to the heart of the tech world with performances at San Francisco Opera in June/July 2020.  This is a major event in the life of this opera.  It’s been thrilling to see audiences embrace the work from Santa Fe to Seattle to Indiana, but there’s nothing like bringing an opera to the locale of its setting.  My initial inspiration for the piece was the Bay Area’s legion of creative technologists, whose work is changing the way we interact, create, and live.  Jobs remains a fascination for techies and non-technics alike, someone whose personal challenges and contradictions are the stuff of opera.  San Francisco Opera has been a phenomenal partner from the start of the commissioning process, and they’re bringing back the original cast that won the 2019 Grammy for Best Opera, led by baritone Edward Parks and mezzo Sasha Cooke.  Also onstage this season are several ballets, from Aszure Barton’s stunning work at the Houston Ballet to a work by Joffrey Ballet’s Nicholas Blanc, who reprises a work he recently created for NYC Ballet.

In February, Mercury Soul heads to the Arguyous Center in Sun Valley, Idaho, transforming this new performing arts space into a club just in time for Ski Week. And back in San Francisco later this spring, we will be presenting one of our most exciting offerings to date: the music of Stranger Things at August Hal featuring composers Kyle Dixon and Michael Stein. They are heirs to the organ symphonies of Messiaen and Saint-Saens, as well of course to the ’80s soundtracks of John Carpenter.

Symphonic: Philharmonia Fantastique & beyond
Years in the making, my animated film about the “making of the orchestra” births in two places this spring: the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (March 26-28) and the San Francisco Symphony (April 16-18). This has been a joy to work on with director Gary Rydstrom of Lucasfilm and animation director Jim Capobianco of Aerial Contrivance Workshop. The three of us have created a 21st-century guide to the orchestra that flies inside instruments to explore the age-old connection between creativity and technology. With support from the Sakana Foundation and the John & Marcia Goldman Foundation, the project has been in development for over two years, and next season it goes to the Dallas, National, and Pittsburgh Symphonies. More info can be found here. Other notable symphonic performances this spring include my creation oratorio Children of Adam at the Colorado Symphony under Brett Mitchell and the Memphis Symphony under Robert Moody, and Resurrexit at the National Symphony Orchestra under Manfred Honeck.

Opera: The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs

How special is it to share a story in the hometown of the protagonist? We’ll find out this June and July when The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs comes to San Francisco Opera. The story of Steve Jobs is the stuff of opera – love, obsession, betrayal, death – yet I still get comments along the lines of “Steve Jobs in an opera?” That element of surprise has helped the work in the variety of cities where it’s appeared, leaving audiences unprepared for the emotional depths the work explores. SF Opera’s Matthew Shilvock was one of the earliest supporters of this project, and it is a huge honor to have this work brought to the Center of Tech by such a legendary opera house. Expect all manner of San Francisco insanity at some of these performances!

Philharmonia Fantastique

Philharmonia Fantastique logo black

Sometimes an artist changes the medium; sometimes the medium changes the artist. Over the past two decades, the orchestra has undergone its most extensive evolution since the expansion of the percussion section in the early 20th Century. In one of the last bastions of analogue technology, digital technology has started to change the game: first came digital audio, then came video. Both are at work in my new symphony Philharmonia Fantastique: The Making of the Orchestra, a collaboration with director Gary Rydstrom and animator Jim Capobianco.

This concerto for orchestra and animated film, premiering this spring with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the San Francisco Symphony, journeys inside the instruments to see how they work. Moving next season to the Pittsburgh, National, and Dallas Symphonies, Philharmonia Fantastique will subsequently be released on screen and television by Vulcan Productions.

The piece is a kinetic exploration of the age-old connection between music and technology, an intersection that’s been happening ever since bamboo was turned into pan flutes, or animal skin and logs were made into drums. Astonishing innovations in musical engineering have continued for centuries, from Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier celebration of equal temperament to Wagner’s tubas. Guided by a mercurial Sprite that is born in the film’s opening minutes, we fly inside a flute to see its keys up close; jump on a viola string to activate the harmonic series; and zip through the tubes of tuba as its valves elongate shafts of air.

So why this, why now? A new medium has developed – film with live orchestra – that perfectly suits a new ‘guide to the orchestra.’ Over the past few decades, the orchestra has sprouted some interesting new appendages. On the audio front, I’ve witnessed first-hand how orchestras can evolve, seeing early electro-acoustic works such as Rusty Air in Carolina, Liquid Interface, and Mothership first provoke head-scratching before being widely embraced.(Symphonic-electronic soundworlds have been hitting ears since Pink Floyd’s Atom Heart Mother and film scores, but the symphonic repertoire had stuck with its acoustic roots. We just needed to figure out how to integrate speakers into the orchestra in three rehearsals!

On my mind were masterpieces such as Bela Bartok’s Concerto for Orchestra, to Benjamin Britten’s Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra, and Disney’s Fantasia when I approached Gary Rydstrom about making a film together about ‘the making of the orchestra.’ Gary’s a master sound designer (count ‘em, seven Oscars for his work with Spielberg) and well as a gifted director of animated films such as Lucasfilm’s Strange Magic. He loved the idea and brought in gifted animator Jim Capobianco (you can spot his most recent work in the animated sequence in Mary Poppins Returns that travels inside a ceramic bowl). The three of us started meeting up at Skywalker Ranch north of San Francisco, wringing our hands over questions such as How does the Sprite get inside the cello???

A combination of animation and special-effects shots of musical instruments, the film will be performed live in concert by an orchestra enhanced by electronic sounds – an integration of a variety of artistic technologies in a through-composed symphony. We’re still working out the final trajectory of the film, when the four ‘tribes’ (families) of the orchestra must unite to resurrect the Sprite (yeah it’s got stakes!). The different instruments of the orchestra are as different as the races on earth, but they fuse together to become The Orchestra – one of the greatest human creations. Stay tuned for more about the piece and the process in the coming months!

BLOG: August: Reconnecting

This month I reconnect with several longtime musical partners in summery locales, where works new and old will be brought to life by some of the finest musicians I’ve worked with.  These trips are in the midst of a few months focused on composing and storyboarding The Making of the Orchestra, a multimedia work premiering next season.  After holing up in the studio on this piece all summer, it’ll be nice to reconnect with old friends in warm places.
 
The Philadelphia Orchestra brings Anthology of Fantastic Zoology to the Saratoga Performing Arts Center in upstate New York, reprising my largest work after performances last season in Philly and at Carnegie Hall.  I love this orchestra and its amazing maestro Yannick Seguin-Nazet.  When the Philadelphia Orchestra first invited me to perform Alternative Energy with them several years ago, I went with both excitement and curiosity.  This iconic orchestra’s storied history, both within classical music and in the popular imagination (cf Fantasia), might have given me some trepidation about introducing techno beats and electronic sounds on their stage.  I’ve been inspired to see how many venerable orchestras and maestros have embraced the electro-acoustic soundworld of works such as Liquid Interface and Mothership, but it’s always slightly intimidating to first step onstage with a legendary orchestra.  There’s a bit of sizing up that goes on.
 
With Philly, it became instantly clear that both maestro and musicians were ready to jam.  This orchestra is lucky to have the famed Curtis Institute supply it with a steady stream of young dynamos.  That exuberance comes through in their vivid playing and, of course, from the Yannick’s podium.  He’s a rare blend of world-class conducting power and adventurous programming, equally at home with the warhorses from the repertoire or pieces hot of the press.  Anthology of Fantastic Zoology conjures a bestiary of mythological creatures in symphonic Technicolor, and Yannick pulled some phenomenal textures out of the work from start to finish.  As I look ahead to new commissions for both Philly and for the Metropolitan Opera (his other small gig), I’m excited to create new music for him after several years of getting to know each other.  He’s soulful and charming.
 
A few weeks later, I head to beautiful Sun Valley, where Alasdair Neal directs one of the best summer symphonic festivals in the country.  The phenomenal Sun Valley Symphony performs free concerts all summer in a stunningly tricked-out pavilion, a kind of Tanglewood or Aspen of the West. I premiered Devil’s Radio in Sun Valley and look forward to a packed week of concerts that includes that piece and several others.  The most exciting performance is Passage, a work for mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke, orchestra, and electronica sounds.  The piece is about the moon landing, combining a setting of a Walt Whitman poem celebrating American exploration with recorded fragment’s of JFK’s iconic moonshot speech.  As we look back on the 50th anniversary of the lunar landing, it’s worth thinking about presidential words.   The aspirational optimism of JFK drove America to great heights – literally – and is sorely missing in today’s discourse.
 
It’s been a total joy to see this project from its pie-in-the-sky beginnings to production up at Skywalker Ranch with director Gary Rydstrom of Lucasfilm and animator Jim Capobianco of Aerial Contrivance Workshop.   We’re building piece about a Sprite that flies inside instruments to see how they work, bursting to life in a beautiful combination of animation and micro-photography of instruments.  Keep an eye on my social media feeds later this month for clips from those shoots!
 
Check out this video of Sasha performing “Passage” with the NSO: